by Donna Alward
“It’s fine—”
“...and the first chance I get, I’m snapping at you.”
“It’s been a challenging day.”
“And now you’re making excuses for me. When what I should be doing is saying thank-you.”
She was certain her heart was going to beat clear through her chest when he pulled her closer and folded her in a hug. “Thank you,” he whispered. “For taking care of my daughter as if she were your own.”
Her eyes stung. His first words had been like a stab to the gut. But this...this was taking the knife and twisting it.
It was all she could do to not start crying.
“I don’t know what we would have done without you today. She was so scared...hell, I was terrified. I walked in there and smelled the smoke and saw the flames and all I could think of was stopping it so we didn’t lose what we had left of our old life.”
He held her closer and she let him, because she could tell he needed to say it, to get it out in the open. It wasn’t just Amber who’d been traumatized today. Quinn had been, too. His word choice said a lot, too. He was holding tight to the life they used to have. It wasn’t the first time he’d said it. It was the life he’d had with Marie, when they’d all been a happy family. She had no business inserting herself into the middle of that.
Inserting herself? That was crazy, wasn’t it? She didn’t even like Quinn...
Except deep down she knew that was a lie. Yes, he got under her skin. Yes, she often felt inadequate when he was around. There wasn’t anything he did poorly. But she did like him, or at least admire him. Too much for her own good. Too much for them to be living under the same roof and definitely too much for her to spend any longer in his embrace.
She gave a quick squeeze and then started to pull away. “But you are here, and everything is going to be fine. Just remember that.” She stepped out of his embrace and smiled weakly. “Before you know it everything will be back to normal and this will all be behind you.”
His gaze searched hers and she wondered if the whiskey had been extra strong.
“Back to normal. Right.”
“I’m going to bed, Quinn. It’s been a long day.”
“Right.”
“See you in the morning.”
“Right again.”
And still his gaze held her prisoner until she either had to break it or she was going to find herself in his arms again.
It was the reminder of Marie that made her back up a little more. His hand rested on the railing of the staircase and the plain gold band on his finger caught the light. It communicated their situation perfectly: Quinn Solomon was still another woman’s husband. In his heart, where it mattered most. In that moment she was incredibly jealous of Marie Solomon. How lucky the woman had been, to know that much love and devotion.
It was foolish to be jealous of a woman who wasn’t even alive anymore. What on earth was wrong with her?
“Good night,” she whispered. And before she could change her mind, she turned and climbed the stairs without looking back to see if he was still standing at the bottom, watching her.
Chapter Six
Lacey put her job search on the back burner for a few days and focused on Quinn and Amber. If it felt a little too personal, she ignored it. She was merely someone in a position to help a neighbor. While Quinn dealt with the insurance company and all the other details about the house repairs, Lacey cooked meals, did laundry, and one day after preschool she took Amber shopping for a new wardrobe. The first stop, though, was lunch at the diner. Shopping with a hungry and cranky kid was not part of the plan.
Every small town she could think of had a family restaurant where everyone knew everyone else and the daily specials were practically memorized according to the day of the week. In Gibson, the diner had the uninspired name of the Horseshoe Diner.
Amber was practically bouncing as they went inside. “I’m gonna have a hot dog and a chocolate milkshake!” she announced, her pigtails bobbing with each step. It was barely out of her mouth when she darted away. “Daddy!”
A jolt of something zipped through Lacey’s body as her gaze followed Amber. Quinn was already at a booth, grinning at his daughter as if he hadn’t seen her in days, rather than hours. Lacey was glad to see him, which made her a little uncomfortable. She’d thought today’s lunch was just going to be her and Amber, not the three of them. She was trying to avoid the appearance of a family, which they definitely were not. But it was difficult when they lived under the same roof and as she started to care more and more for Amber. And for Quinn, a little voice in her head reminded her, but she pushed that thought away.
Pasting on a smile, she slid into the empty side of the booth. “I didn’t realize you were going to be here,” she said, putting her purse on the vinyl seat.
“I ended up having to come into town to sign some stuff,” he replied. “I knew what time Amber was done, and I thought I’d meet you here.”
“I want a hot dog, Daddy.”
“Of course you do.” He chuckled, the sound low and warm, sending ripples of pleasure over Lacey’s nerve endings. Quinn really did have a great voice. Deep, quiet, but with a clarity and strength that...
Argh! She had to stop thinking this way. Instead she picked up the plastic menu and started scanning the offerings. She’d barely skimmed the first page when the waitress came over and asked to take their order.
“I’ll have a hot dog and a chocolate milkshake, please,” Amber ordered clearly, and Lacey hid a smile. For a girl her age, she had a lot of poise.
“What would you like on your hot dog, sweetheart?” The waitress was smiling too, at this point. Amber was hard to resist.
“Just ketchup. Please.”
“You got it. How about you, Lacey?”
Lacey blinked, unsure how or why the woman knew her name. “Oh. Uh...”
The woman grinned. “You look a lot like your brother. You were in here a few days back, too, putting up your sign.” She gestured with her pen towards the bulletin board. “Strangers don’t stay strangers very long in this town.”
“Oh. Right. I’ll, uh...” She bit down on her lip. “I guess I’ll have the chicken salad on whole grain with a side salad instead of fries.”
“You didn’t say please,” Amber piped up.
Lacey swallowed. “Please.”
Quinn was trying not to laugh as he ordered a cheeseburger platter with everything on it.
As they waited for their food, they were saved from much conversation as Amber chattered along, filling the silence with tales from preschool and how Taylor Johnson picked his nose and wiped it on his shirt and Madison Jeffries had picked up a baby snake on the playground. When the meals came, Lacey felt immediate buyer’s remorse as she looked at her plate. Oh, there was nothing wrong with her sandwich or salad, but the sight of the rich milkshake and the savory scent of Quinn’s burger had her mouth watering.
She looked up and saw Quinn watching her with a lopsided grin. Then he deliberately picked up a French fry, dipped it in the dish of ketchup on his plate, and bit into it with enthusiasm.
“Tease,” she muttered, before she could think better of it.
His gaze held hers and there was that zing again. She hadn’t meant it that way, but it seemed innuendoes happened without her even trying.
She picked up her fork and speared a piece of cucumber. This was better for her. She’d be glad of her choice in the long run. Right?
“So,” she asked, “everything okay this morning?”
Quinn looked over at Amber and then back at Lacey. “Things have a tendency to move slowly, if you know what I mean.”
She understood completely. Paperwork and bureaucracy moved on their own time, not anyone else’s.
“How’s your coverage?” She picked up h
alf her sandwich and took a bite, then dotted her lips with her napkin. Amber, she noticed, already had an adorable smear of ketchup on the side of her mouth.
“Adequate...but it’ll be tight for a while.” He frowned. “A single income already makes it tight.”
He looked over at Amber, and Lacey wondered how much of his paycheck was eaten up by preschool fees and after-school day care. He had a good job at Crooked Valley, but bringing up kids solo was an expensive venture. She didn’t need her accounting degree to figure that one out.
“Anything I can do to help?” she asked.
“You’re already doing it. I saw the pile of laundry this morning. You don’t have to do that.”
“I’m home. You’re working. I might as well be doing something and if it helps you guys out, bonus.” She smiled at him. “I’m not used to being idle, Quinn. I mean it. It’s no bother.”
Still, a load or two of laundry and running some errands with Amber didn’t feel like much help. Lacey enjoyed being with the little girl, who said funny things through the innocence of a four-year-old filter.
They finished their meal and Quinn paid the bill, then put on his hat. “Well, ladies, thank you for the lunch but I’d better get back to work.”
“You can’t go shopping with us, Daddy?”
Lacey grinned. She couldn’t help it. Amber reminded her of a little Shirley Temple, hard to resist and twice as cute.
“Oh, I think that’s best left to the women. You have fun and I’ll see you at dinner.”
“Lacey said she’s making stuffy chops.”
At Quinn’s questioning glance, she elaborated. “Stuffed pork chops.”
“Sounds good.” They made their way outside into the sunshine and Lacey knelt down to help Amber get her thumbs into her mittens. When she stood up, Quinn was close. Too close.
“Thank you for this. I know you said it’s no trouble, but I appreciate it just the same.”
“You’re welcome.”
His hand was on the small of her back. She was sure it was just a polite gesture, mannerly. Gentlemanly. Still, the warmth of it seeped through her jacket to her skin.
Dry spell, she reminded herself. She only reacted to Quinn this way because she’d had such a big dry spell.
Even more disconcerting was the fact that he didn’t seem to pick fights with her anymore. She sometimes missed the verbal sparring, but there had been bigger issues to deal with than the right way to load the dishwasher or whether or not to fold the towels in halves or thirds—the sort of thing they would have bickered about before.
His hand slid away.
“I’ll see you at home?”
She nodded, but it suddenly became clear. She was acting this way because she was pretending. She was playing house—with Quinn, with his daughter. But he was not her husband and Amber was not her child and it was certainly not her home...well, perhaps a third of it was, but that really didn’t matter. She was playing house, pretending to have the life she had always wanted, but that had been taken away from her. She would have to watch that. Stay rational. Put things in perspective.
Crooked Valley was not growing on her. It certainly wasn’t a permanent solution to her problems. After all, she couldn’t live off her brother’s goodwill forever, and she wasn’t contributing to the ranch so she didn’t expect any of the returns.
Quinn kissed Amber’s head and jogged away to his truck. Lacey didn’t want to get caught looking after him, so she took Amber’s hand and put on her cheeriest voice. “Okay, sweetie. Let’s hit the stores.”
* * *
MUCH TO LACEY’S RELIEF, Kailey Brandt phoned and said she’d like to meet to talk about some book work. The past few days had been busy, but Lacey knew she was getting too used to what were really housewife duties and she wanted something more. The last thing she needed to do was get in the habit of looking after Quinn and Amber as if they were her family. Once his house was fixed up, they’d be moving bac’k there and wouldn’t need her anymore. Heck, they didn’t need her now. They’d managed just fine, the two of them. It was her, needing to keep busy, longing to nurture, that kept her offering to do things for them. She was smart enough to know it. So the possibility of even part-time work was desperately exciting.
Quinn had driven Amber to school and was already in the barn when Lacey tucked her hair into a messy topknot and put on her coat and boots. It was February, quite cold outside, and she had to take a few precious minutes to scrape the frost from her windshield. The roads were decent, though, and it only took a few minutes to drive from Crooked Valley to the Brandt place.
Brandt Bucking Stock was clearly a profitable operation. The fences and buildings were large and well-maintained, with fresh paint and a general neatness that spoke of consistent care. Lacey compared it to Crooked Valley and frowned a little. Perhaps Granddad had struggled to keep profits up towards the end. It wasn’t that Crooked Valley was falling apart or anything, but it lacked the polish and prosperity of Brandt. The little details that perhaps Duke couldn’t afford.
She parked in front of the house and grabbed her laptop bag. Before she could even get out of the car, Kailey appeared on the porch, zipping up a heavy jacket.
Lacey got out and slammed the door. “Good morning.”
“Hey,” Kailey replied. “The office is in the main barn, so come on down. I’ll show you what’s what.”
They crossed the yard, heading towards the biggest building, white with dark green trim and massive sliding doors on one end. They entered through a smaller man door, and as they walked down the concrete corridor past long rows of stalls, Lacey was even more impressed. Kailey’s boots made clicking sounds on the floor and Lacey noticed the woman’s purposeful stride. She envied Kailey in that moment—sure of who she was and what she was doing. The woman was perhaps a few years younger than Lacey, but with far more confidence and purpose.
The barn office was nothing fancy; white walls with some framed pictures of different horses that Lacey assumed were Brandt stock, a shelf of trophies and cups, two large metal filing cabinets and a basic desk, chair and computer set up with a printer on a side table. In no time at all, Kailey had brought up the accounting and banking programs. It was all straightforward and simple, and a program that Lacey was familiar with. Everything was linked to make tax payments and payroll deductions as well as print checks.
“You’ve got a good setup here,” Lacey said, clicking the mouse and checking out different parts of the programs. “Nothing jumps out at me as being strange or set up incorrectly, which is great. You say you’ve looked after it up until now?”
Kailey nodded. “I took an accounting course and learned the rest as I went along. I just don’t like it.” She grinned, the freckles on her nose bunching up as she scrunched it. “I’d rather focus on the business of running the breeding program. I’ve got my eye on a new stallion, but I haven’t convinced the owner to sell him to me yet.” Her eyes twinkled at Lacey.
“I can come in once a week if you like. Take care of your invoices and billing, run your payroll biweekly, pay the expenses. Shouldn’t take me more than a few hours each time, more or less depending on what’s going on and how busy you are.”
“That’d be great!” Kailey looked so relieved Lacey laughed.
“Tell me about it. It’s good to know I’ve finally got a little work lined up. I’m hoping I’ll get a few more calls from the flyers I put around town.”
“I figured Amber would have you dancing to her tune by now.”
Lacey chuckled, leaning back in the chair. “Oh, she does. But she’s gone all day, you know. As much as I grumbled about Quinn, he’s not bad for a roommate. Keeps his stuff picked up. Worries about Amber getting in my way. Actually, it’s kind of weird. It’s like he goes out of his way to be nice to me.”
Kailey’s brows pulled together. �
��That’s just Quinn, though. He’s a really nice guy.”
“Not to me.” At Kailey’s astonished expression, Lacey backpedaled. “That’s not what I meant. I just mean...when we met he found fault with just about everything I did. Now he’s so polite it sets my teeth on edge.”
“Quinn never likes to inconvenience anyone. He has a hard time accepting help. The last thing he’d do is make things difficult. I’m actually surprised he agreed to stay at the house at all.”
“I’m pretty sure he did it for Amber.”
Kailey nodded. “So she’d have some consistency and familiarity. Quinn doesn’t not like you, Lacey. He’s not like that. He’s just very protective of the life he’s built. It’s no secret that you’re not really into the ranch, and for Quinn, Crooked Valley is the one thing that makes his life here possible, so nothing else has to change. You can’t really blame the guy for being defensive.”
And now she was throwing that into turmoil by being so stubborn. She still didn’t want to be involved with the ranch, but maybe there was a way she could work something out for a while and then sell her third to Duke. It wasn’t just Quinn who had something at stake with Crooked Valley. It was Duke and Carrie and their unborn child.
Lacey sighed. “You’re not like that with me, though.”
Kailey shrugged. “It’s not my business at stake. Anyway,” she continued, “there’s going to be a benefit at the Silver Dollar on Valentine’s Day. A local band is going to provide the music for free and all the cover charge money is going to give Quinn a hand. Not that we’ve told him, mind you. He’d say no to charity flat out. It’s a surprise. At least until it’s so far arranged that he can’t say no.”
A benefit? For Quinn? Lacey thought it was a lovely idea. Though the idea of it being on Valentine’s Day struck her as a bit funny. Quinn wasn’t the kind of guy who was looking for romance. Not when he was still stuck in his perfect past life...
